


Crying doesn't mean that you are weak

by DasIchigo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood, Crying, Crying Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Fluff and Angst, Hugs, Hurt Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Nightmares, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scared Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin), Suffering, smol and scared levi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-11-11
Packaged: 2019-02-01 02:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12694989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DasIchigo/pseuds/DasIchigo
Summary: Levi is having a nigtmare and Eren helps him deal with his emotions.(Post-Female-Titan Arc)





	Crying doesn't mean that you are weak

Eren never had a problem with showing his emotions. He cried when he was sad, he screamed when he was angry and laughed when he was happy. Eren wasn’t the one to care if someone saw him cry. Close to everyone in the Survey Corps saw him cry by now and no one really made a big deal out of it.

 

_-Levi was the complete opposite of this-_

 

Levi never showed his emotions, except sometimes anger, disgust or even surprise. Because he was taught not to. He was taught to hide any emotions, to not show his weaknesses, even if it hurts him. He was taught to neither show his pain, nor his happiness. To conceal. Levi never cried, laughed or smiled. He built a wall around himself to not let anyone know how he feels deep inside. Maybe he even forgot how to feel at all.

 

_-It was not a miracle that it would break him someday, but of course no one noticed. No one cared.-_

* * *

 

Eren walked down the halls of the castle. The sun was slowly setting and spread a warm light through the windows, colouring the cold stone walls in a beautiful shade of a yellowish orange. His boots made a rather loud sound on the floor, echoing through the empty hallway. The brown hair bobbing slightly due to the pace he was walking in.

It was possible to think he was the only one still awake. Everyone already went to sleep as soon as they could after today’s mission probably. At least the ones who could sleep after the horror they just saw.

But Eren couldn’t possibly sleep. It was his fault so many of his comrades died. It was his fault the Captain lost his whole squad. Just because he couldn’t think on his own. Obediently following orders and trusting the higher ups that they would make the right decisions. What a fool he was. If he just acted when he had the chance they might have survived. They might still be alive.

He didn’t even want to know how the Captain must feel, and how furious he must be at him. At least Levi is the one who lost the squad he himself picked together and worked with. He must feel awful. Eren thought he should go and apologize to him. It’s the least he can do. It’s not much but maybe Levi then would know that Eren knew it was his fault.

 

* * *

 

 Levi tried to sleep. He really did. But there was a thick line between trying and actually doing it. He stared at his ceiling for about an hour, lost in his thoughts until he couldn’t stand the pictures and scenarios playing in his head anymore. He had to get up and distract himself from all that happened. So the raven started to write the report for the mission, what turned out not to be his best idea.

His hands began to tremble from the memories of the passing hours as he wrote, until his handwriting was unreadable. He took the paper, crumpled it together and tossed it into the trash, rested his head on his hands and sighed deeply. He couldn’t write the report now; he wasn’t even able to fall asleep due to the things that happened, how did he even think of distracting himself this way? All it did was making it worse.

He eventually fell asleep, sitting on his desk again.

 

* * *

 

Big raindrops hit his face when he woke up. But he didn’t want to open his eyes. He was too tired, too exhausted to move even a finger, but as soon as screams rang in his ears and the scent of blood hung in the air he quickly opened his eyes and sat up, staring straight in the eyes of a young girls corpse  lying on his lap. The head of the corpse was set in an odd angle and blood stained her face and strawberry blonde hair. Levi wanted to move and run away, wanted to get away from the body and tried to shove it off of him but the corps wouldn’t move. Instead it opened its mouth and slowly began to speak

_“Why did you let us die Heichou?”_

Levi gasped, eyes widened in shock as he jumped and started running, until something grabbed this leg and he fell into a puddle of blood. Only now he realized it was raining blood as it dripped down his hair and face and fell into the red puddle underneath his shaking fingers.

From behind, more hands started to grab and pull him back, the bodies screaming as he turned around, looking in three pairs of dead eyes.

 

_“Why did you leave us Captain?”_

_“Why didn’t you save us?”_

****

**_“It is your fault that we are dead.”_ **

 

He screamed and scrambled back, trying to get away from the corpses of his fallen comrades, but there was no way he could escape the deaths he had caused. There was no way he could run away from what he did. But he still tried to get away. He ran. He ran as long as he could, scared of facing the truth and scared to die. He couldn’t even begin to think about what he should do. All his instincts told him to run away until his breath ran out and he stopped right in front of a huge humanoid creature. Red eyes staring at him and a big smile decorated its face as it spat out the remainings of a body which landed right before his feet, next to the detached head of a girl whose face now was stained with blood redder than her once so beautiful hair.

Levi stumbled back again, tears filling the corners of his eyes. “I am so sorry.” the words not more than a breathed whisper hanging in the cold air. He couldn’t avert his eyes from the sight at his feet. The time seemed to be standing still as the huge creature closed in on him and reached out to him with its hand, stained with fresh blood dripping down. He just stood there, unable to move even further.

_“LEVI”_

A scream that made him wince in surprise and hope. He turned around desperately, trying to ignore the dead bodies and the smell of blood everywhere and find the source of the voice.

_“LEVI”_

He tried to run again, to run in the direction of the voice but he couldn’t even make out where it came from other than far away. It was like it just rang through his mind, not belonging to anyone. Just a part of his imagination and his desperate wish to not be alone. He stopped again, falling to his knees, sitting on the muddy grass beneath him, not caring for the dirt and blood staining is white pants for probably an eternity and staring up to the sky, letting the blood red rain hit his face and drains the rest of his once green cloak with the wings of freedom on it. Wings he once was proud to wear on his back.

He closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his face as more hands pulled him down into the sea of blood and the screams of their agony rang in his ears while he just drowned and felt how the ran out of air to breath and sunk deeper down in the seemingly endless depth of the sea of blood.

“WAKE UP LEVI”

“WAKE UP”

“Wake up…”

Everything went black.

 

* * *

 

Eren wasn’t sure if he should knock at the Captains door or just walk in. If he would wake him up he would most certainly kill him, but if he wouldn’t knock he might kill him for not doing so.

Eren decided that knocking quietly would be the best option so he put his hand up to carefully knock on the door when he heard muffled sobbing coming from inside the room, followed by a painful scream. Without much more thinking Eren just opened the door and looked around the dark room and saw Levi sleeping on his desk. Half of the man’s face was hidden in his arms he used as a pillow and his shaking body hunched together. The man looked even smaller and more vulnerable to Eren than he ever thought he would see him. Closing the door behind him he walked to the desk his Captain was lying on. Carefully he tried to shake Levis shoulder.

“Levi”

He only winced once more.

“Levi”

This time he shook him even more.

“LEVI”

Levi only whined again and Eren tried to ignore the tears that started to run down his Captains cheeks. He better never tells anyone about this if he doesn’t want to die a painful death. But he also couldn’t just ignore him and let him have his nightmare. If he already cried when he was still asleep, he didn’t want to know how he would react if he would wake up, all by himself.

“LEVI WAKE UP”

“WAKE UP”

“Wake up…”

With a loud gasp Levi opened his eyes and sat straight up in his chair. Not a second later he noticed Eren next to him and stared at the boy with a shocked expression until he noticed the tears that still ran down his cheeks and whipped them away with his sleeves.

“What are you doing here, Jäger?” His voice was hoarse from crying and his cheeks showed a light flush caused by the humiliation of the situation as he looked away from Eren.

“I uhm, wanted to apologize to you because I got your squad killed but-“ He immediately stopped talking as he saw how Levi tensed up. Of course this had to be the reason for his nightmare. How could he be so stupid?

“I-I mean… I am sorry Captain” Eren stuttered as a poor excuse for an apology.

“Oh shut your stupid mouth. It’s not you fucking fault they are dead so don’t you dare apologizing, brat. And now get the fuck out of my room and don’t tell anyone about this or I will kill you just to dig up you grave and bring you back to life so I can chop off your limbs and kill you again.” Levi still sounded hoarse and whipped his face with the sleeve of his shirt.

“Y-Yes Sir… but, you know it is okay to cry?”

Levi just stared at Eren. Not really knowing what to say, so Eren just continued to talk. “Just because you cry sometimes doesn’t mean that you’re weak, it just means that you maybe stayed strong for too long. I don’t think they would want you to suffer, trying to hold back you emotions. No one would be mad or think any less of you. Showing emotions is what makes us _human_.”

Something in what Eren just said made Levi ache inside and made him want to cry for all the times he didn’t just because he was taught not to. He hurts. He hurts and he knows it, knew it all along but he never had the courage to admit it to himself. But Eren just said it straight into his face, and that made it even worse.

Levi didn’t even care anymore that he was now staring straight into Erens face but also looking straight through the boy as tears again started to run down his cheeks and soft whimpers escaped him. But Eren just smiled at him warmly, sinking to his knees and wrapped his arms around Levi, who just fell from his chair in the younger boys arms and sobbed in his shoulder. Levis hands clenched into Erens shirt as he cried in his arms, enjoying the warmth of the others body and the pounding of his heart against himself. Enjoying the comforting feeling of one of Erens hands drawing soft circles on his back and the other pressing him closer to his chest. Eren held Levi close the whole time he cried into the boys arms and letting him for once let go of his emotions.

They both didn’t know how long they sat there but after a long time Levis crying died down and Eren could feel the weight on his chest increase as his Captain fell asleep. He couldn’t do other than smile at the sight of Levis calm face and soft breathing in his arms.

Careful not to wake him, Eren lifted Levi up and placed him on his bed and pulled the blanket over the small body. After that he just whipped the tears out of the ravens face and was on his way out as he heard Levi talking.

“Jäger, you know that I still am going to beat the shit out of you if you tell this anyone?”

“Of course, Sir”

“But Eren”

“Yes?”

“Thank you”

 

* * *

 

With that he finally fell into a peaceful night of sleep without waking due to a nightmare again.

Eren as well was able to get a good night of sleep, now that he knew Levi wasn’t angry at him and could rest well.

Yes, this evening wasn’t bad for neither of them, not at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> So this my first english work.  
> I am actually german so please don't mind the mistakes.  
> Thanks to Ange for helping me there!
> 
> (I nearly forgot to put in the text and I think thats funny.)
> 
> I kinda love stuff like this so I wrote it! Jaj!  
> (We need more crying Levi okay, dont judge me!)


End file.
